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Massachusetts Rescinds Deal on Policing Immigration

BOSTON, Jan. 11 — Gov. Deval L. Patrick said Thursday that as expected, he had rescinded a new agreement between Massachusetts and federal officials that empowered the state police to arrest illegal immigrants on charges of violating immigration law.

The agreement was announced last month by Mitt Romney, who was then governor and has since opened a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Within nine days of the announcement, Mr. Patrick, as the Democratic governor-elect, said he would void the accord on the ground that state troopers already had enough to do enforcing Massachusetts statutes and should not have the added responsibility of dealing with federal law.

Mr. Patrick said at a news conference Thursday that he would negotiate a new agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement giving 12 Massachusetts corrections officers the power to search for illegal immigrants in the state prison system and report them to federal authorities for possible deportation.

These officers will be stationed at prisons in Concord and Framingham that process all inmates in the system. The governor said he would consider broadening this accord to include county and local jails, depending on what happened at the state level.

Mr. Patrick said doing away with the arrangement negotiated by Mr. Romney would allow state troopers to maintain a focus on gun-, drug- and gang-related crime.

“The wisest and most practical course,” he said, “is for state troopers to focus on enforcing Massachusetts laws.”

The governor was joined at the news conference by the Massachusetts secretary of public safety, Kevin M. Burke, who said state police officials had expressed concern that the increased responsibilities would overburden their officers.

“It would definitely have affected, according to their analysis, their ability to deal with their core mission” of enforcing state law, Mr. Burke said.

There were no arrests under the Romney agreement, since, Mr. Patrick said, the state troopers chosen to carry out the policy had not yet begun a required six-week training course.

At least eight other jurisdictions have already partnered with the federal government in helping enforce immigration law. Arizona and five counties in California and North Carolina have agreements with Washington involving state corrections officers, while Alabama and Florida have arrangements involving the state police.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Massachusetts Rescinds Deal On Policing Immigration. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe